Originally Posted by
mikewaters
If I do it this season, I'll definitely post about it here. I can already envision it.
"Was in the back third, trying not to get in the wind. Got behind the wrong wheel, and gap opened up. Decided not to bridge. Gap got big and I realized these were the guys off the back permanently. Made huge effort to bridge. Gassed. Next acceleration came and I was off the back. Soft-pedaled and watched the race unfold."
Too much thinking, not enough doing. Crit, track, whatever, do whichever one first that is most convenient, not the one you think will suit you better. Your intuitions about what kind of rider you are, having not raced, are going to be pretty poorly tuned. For example, before I started racing, I thought I was going to be a pure climber because I am small and light, and that I would not enjoy or do well in crits. As it turned out, while I can train my FTP to acceptable levels, it's not a natural strength of mine. I was decent at crits right away. Road races require a lot more work for me to be competitive. I hear this same kind of thing from other people, too. Some people do correctly guess at their strengths and weaknesses before starting, but it's kind of like guessing a coin flip - if you're right, it's more due to chance than knowledge. Just go for it.